MDBCs 20 Mar 2023

The unofficial holiday celebrates the tradition of oral storytelling and encourages participants to tell and listen to stories from different cultures and in different languages.

Started in Sweden

Story Telling Day wasn’t always celebrated globally. The first such day was observed in Sweden in the early 1990s and was called Alla Berättares Dag, or All Narrators Day. Soon storytellers around the world picked up the holiday and it has now become a global “celebration of oral storytelling.” Each celebration since 2004 has a theme associated with it, including strong women, dreams, neighbors, water, and monsters and dragons.

People can tap into historical and cultural stories and spread them globally or make up their own new stories.

Celebration of Spring

The March Equinox is known as the Spring Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and the Autumn Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere. The day is considered by astronomers and people in many cultures in the Northern Hemisphere as the first day of spring.

How to Celebrate?

Participate in your local storytelling event.
If there is none near you, maybe organize your own event?
Have an older person tell you a story from their childhood.
Encourage the children in your life to tell stories.

Did You Know...

...that according to the Guinness Book of Records, A La Recherche du Temps Perdu by Marcel Proust is the longest novel ever written? First published in 1913, this 7 volume novel has a total of 9,609,000 characters.

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Proposal Day

March 20 is Proposal Day, a day to pop the question and ask your significant other to marry you.

The unofficial holiday encourages people to propose marriage to their significant others.

Rings as a Symbol of Engagement

In many cultures, a proposal for marriage is accompanied by an engagement ring. The ring is usually worn by the female partner for the time between the acceptance of the proposal and the wedding ceremony.

Breaking Tradition

Traditionally, it is the male partner who makes the proposal, but there are some countries where the woman can propose marriage to her sweetheart on a Leap Day. These days, however, these traditions are no longer set in stone and women as well as men can propose marriage to their significant others.

A similar holiday, Propose Day, is sometimes celebrated on the day after Valentine’s Day.

How to Celebrate?

If you have a significant other who you would like to settle down with, take the plunge and ask them to marry you. If you don’t have a significant other yet, today is the day to start looking for one.

Did You Know...

...that the ancient Romans were the first people who wore engagement rings as a way to signify that a person was no longer available for marriage?

***

I was a percussion major when I was in college, and during a rehearsal of the student orchestra, my section kept making mistakes.

"When you're too dumb to play anything," the professor conducting us sneered, "they give you a couple of sticks, put you in the back and call you a percussionist."

A friend next to me whispered, "And if you're too dumb to hang on to both sticks, they put you in the front and call you a conductor."

***

As he reviewed pilot crash reports, my Air Force military science professor stumbled upon this understated entry: "After catastrophic engine failure, I landed long. As I had no power, the landing gear failed to deploy and no braking was available. I bounced over the stone wall at the end of the runway, struck the trailer of a truck while crossing the perimeter road, crashed through the guardrail, grazed a large pine tree, ran over a tractor parked in the adjacent field, and hit another tree. Then I lost control."

***

Officer candidate school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, was tough. During an inspection, a fellow soldier received 30 demerits for a single penny found within his area. Ten demerits were for "valuables insecure," ten because the penny wasn't shined, and ten because Abraham Lincoln needed a shave.

***

My father’s secretary was visibly distraught one morning when she arrived at the office and explained that her children’s parrot had escaped from his cage and flown out an open window.

Of all the dangers the tame bird would face outdoors alone, she seemed most concerned about what would happen if the bird started talking.